The Nokia E7, LG Optimus 2X and the Apple iPhone 4 are one of the best and most current representatives of rather different mobile operating systems – Symbian, Android and iOS. It's a long shot to compare the three as they are so different, but it gives us a bird's eye view of how the mobile industry has changed in the last few years.

The Nokia E7 has the worst timing of the three, appearing right after Nokia announced its decision to slowly phase out Symbian, and replace it with Windows Phone. Still, it is an extremely well-crafted device, and its anodized aluminum chassis feels very solid in the hand, all the while it manages to keep a fairly slim profile, considering it carries an excellent chiclet-style physical keyboard.

The LG Optimus 2X is basically a big slab, but the curved battery cover edges, and the soft touch plastic on the back make it comfortable to hold. The iPhone 4, on the other hand, has exceptional looks too, but it achieves it with a steel and glass frame, while still having one of the thinnest profiles out there.

The displays utilized are also very different. First we have the 4” ClearBlack AMOLED on the Nokia E7, which offers the widest viewing angles, high contrast, and nice, saturated colors, plus it has a polarizing filter on top to aid in sunlight visibility, since it is not as bright as the LCD screens on Apple's and LG's handsets. Its main downside – the low 360x640 resolution.

The iPhone 4's so-called Retina Display is much smaller than the one on the E7 at 3.5”, but it has the highest mobile display resolution out there – 640x960 – and is one of the brightest too. And, finally, the display on the LG Optimus 2X is a solid 4” IPS-LCD with 480x800 pixels, making it a good choice if you'd rather have a bigger screen with standard resolution than the smaller one on the iPhone 4.

Apple iPhone 4

Nokia E7

LG Optimus 2X

Displays and viewing angles of the Apple iPhone 4, the Nokia E7 and the LG Optimus 2X

Looking around the sides we immediately notice that the phones have different sets of functionalities. At first look the Nokia E7 is the most versatile of the three. It has an 8MP camera with dual-LED flash, HDMI-out port and USB-on-the-go for hooking up a USB stick directly to your phone.

Left

Top

Right

Bottom

The sides of the Apple iPhone 4 (top), the Nokia E7 (middle) and the LG Optimus 2X (bottom)

The LG Optimus 2X, however, also has an 8MP camera with LED flash and HDMI-out port for hooking up your phone to a big screen TV. It doesn't have USB-on-the-go, but thanks to its dual-core chipset its camera records Full HD 1080p video, plus it has a microSD card slot for storage expansion.

Backs

Of course, both the LG and Apple's phones don't have the comfortable physical keyboard the Nokia E7 has. The iPhone 4 actually looks the least functional in terms of ports, as it has neither HDMI, nor microSD, not even a microUSB port, and a 5MP camera with flash. Camera resolution, however, doesn't mean much for the actual picture quality, and Apple released an HDMI cable that goes into the proprietary port of Apple's finest, so this evens things out to an extent.

Hardware and design is not all there is to it, so let's examine the interfaces quickly.

13 Comments

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1.Henrick Rawlins (unregistered)

Another win for the Iphone4.

I´m a Nokia Fanboy for years but I have to accept that Nokia needs to do something quick in terms of a solid OS. Beleive it or not, I still use a Nokia N95 8GB as my main phone since 2009 & I still enjoy it. Yes I know that many of you are laughing, but I´m in love with my phone that is still in top condition hacked & with smoot applications up and running.

On the other hand we all know that Nokia build the best handsets, just look at the E7 or N8 construction, but there is something missing (A solid OS that can compete with Android & IOS). Symbian is not bad & I can manage it but I accept that my 5 year old daughter will learn from IOS quicker with an Iphone in her hands than my N95 8GB.

Nokia have a sense of pride & precisely this is the fact why they preferred to join with Microsoft than go to the Android platform. We know they have a OS problem, they know they have it. Let´s give them a chance.

Meego is not a reality and perhaps will never be, Symbian^3 is like comparing Windows 7 to XP, more beautiful, but more of the same...... I hope the Nokia Windows phones make difference.

By the way to conclude, I purchase a Blackberry Bold 9780 just to make a difference. It took me more that 7 years for my wife to convince me purchase a Blackberry, but after all the OS6 operating system is not too bad. At least I can chat in real time with my wife & receive pictures on the go via BB messenger. (I know all phones have chatting capabilities because I use Ebuddy messenger on my N958GB)

Don´t get me wrong friends, I´m a Nokia Fanboy, but I just can´t purchase another Nokia until things get better.

Perhaps I will see if I purchase a Galaxy SII or a white Iphone 4 to make a slight change.

4.Nuno (unregistered)

I have a ZTE Blade android phone, but until today I have always had Nokia phones.
I have always bought phones at a max price of 150 euros. But to have a Nokia phone with the functionalities of an android 2.2 phone you are oblidged to buy an expensive model.
As for hardware quality, Nokia is always better hands down.

7.ObiWanSymbian (unregistered)

Why did Nokia decide to go for WP?
Have no clue...
Symbian only needed fine-tuning, reorganising the menu structure, bringing some consistency to it... It basically needed a proper project manager.

As for the 3rd party apps... The_Green_Dust_Bin_Market may offer billions and zillions of them. 90% being a worthless piece of !@#$ developed by wannabe programmers. But Android is praised for offering such a large number to choose from.

On the other hand, Symbian is considered as the platform with the least user friendly browser. Like there was no Opera for Symbian. A browser that at least does not freeze with three tabs open.

9.IOS5 (unregistered)

LG it's nice phone for web browsing and shoot video with 1080p if LG fix the camera issue but still LG 2x didn't support all video codec like galaxy s do iPhone the best but when it comes to call quality even though I'm iPhone fan still nokia the best in this field.

12.Free Iphone (unregistered)

13.OaK (unregistered)

Iphone and nokia are over hyped mobiles. The androids are way better than those two. Lg optimus 2x has a 1ghz dual core processor which is faster than both of them and is cheaper than both me the phones. And this article did not mention that lg optimus has nvidia tegra 2 running which makes gaming on lg more smoother,faster and awesome to play compared to the iphone and the nokia e7. The lg optimus 2x has better video recording at 1080p and an 8mp camera which has more features. I can't believe that people can't accept that there is a better mobile out there(lg optimus 2x) that is really better than the almighty(lolx) iphone 4.

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